Can education research be scientific?

Is it possible to apply scientific methods to education research or is any such attempt misguided?

One of the arguments in Gert Biesta’s book, The Beautiful Risk of Education, is that education is not certain. If we intervene in a particular way in the education of an individual student, we cannot be certain of the result. Instead, we need to take a more nuanced and individualised approach.

Such arguments populate the education debate more broadly. Fo…